When I was younger — about 13 - 14, I wore cargo shorts all the time. They were my constant companion. I would refuse to wear jeans or skirts or any other type of short.

Around the same time, I went into high school and it was then that I started stacking on the weight. I had always been large, but as my body size went up, I didn’t upgrade my cargo shorts. One day I realised that I’d worn through the thighs of one of my pairs of shorts — no big deal. It does happen. But then I saw a picture of myself, of the bulges where there shouldn’t be the stomach that would noticeably stick out over my thighs. I was like some sort of balloon animal, made up entirely of circles or ovals, not how I ’should be’.

I ‘discovered’ jeans and never wore shorts again. Never even considered it, not even in Summer. The thought of wearing shorts made me wince. All I could picture was my knees, the nobbles from the excess fat, the flab that sat behind the knee. So from the time I was about 14, through to the age of 21, I have been short free. I’ve barely shown my legs.

Until today. Today, with the help of some of my college friends, I went shopping and I bought 2 pairs of shorts. You can see my legs, knees and all. (You can also see how much of a clutz I truly am now — the number of bruises on my legs are ridiculous). I am a comfortable size 16, and so I decided it was time to hang up my hang ups. This year I will be all shorted out. I refuse to be ashamed of my body anymore!

I don’t know if anyone still reads this (wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t), but if you do — what are your body hang ups, and how did you (if you did?) get over them?

Posted at 3:26 am | 1 Comment »

It’s not hard to feel like a fraud when you’re fat. At lunch yesterday I was sitting with a group of girls. We’re talking about the normal things: boys, the food, gossip. The topic turns to the weather. “It’s gorgeous outside,” I say, looking out of the dining hall to the sun shining outside. “A few more weeks and it’ll be beach weather.”

One of the girls smiles and nods enthusiastically. “I can’t wait. I love the beach.”

The other two groan. One of them says, “Aw crap,” and when we look bewildered, she looks at her ally. “You know what I’m talking about.” The other girl nods.

“What?” I ask, wondering if maybe she just didn’t like the sun.

“It’s a few weeks until uncovering weather and everyone gets to see all my winter fat.” The other girl nods.

I’ve never worn a bikini in my life. And why worry about the possibility of losing 5 kilos to get into a bikini when you’ve got another 30 to stress over? I haven’t swum in the beach in a long time. Partly because we don’t go there much…partly because I don’t like the exposure.

It’s not that I have anything against my body. I would wear a bikini if I thought I could get away with it. Not a stringy one, of course, but a sturdy bikini and boardies over the top? It could work. Except the thought of walking into a store and asking for help choosing a bikini scares the crap out of me. And then there’s the fact that putting on a bikini seems to open you up to comment — good or bad. How many times have you heard someone go, “Damn, she’s hot!”? Same story, but the exact opposite. And people who wouldn’t comment on how good someone looks would comment on how bad you look. Frankly, I’d rather sing karaoke in front of everyone I know — friends, family, work colleages — than put myself up for comment. (And that’s saying something.) I’m quite liking what I see at the moment. I don’t want that to change.

“Oh,” I say, feeling silly. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh right. “It’s never been an issue for me…I don’t do it,” I mumble awkwardly.

I feel ridiculous. Why am I sitting here talking to these girls about getting our ‘beach bodies’ ready? In what alternate universe do I even partially qualify?

It’s the same when you’re sitting with a group of friends (usually guys), and they start commenting on people. “Look at her! She’s huge, she so fat, she cannot pull off those shorts.” I look at the girl in question. Probably 20kg lighter than me. Shit. What do you say to that? Okay, yes, it was possibly a poor choice of wardrobe and the shorts may not be the most flattering things she could have chosen. But on the other hand, how dare they tear someone down like that? And if they think that of her, what would they say about me if I wasn’t their friend?

So you keep your mouth shut and wonder why they can’t see the giant neon light on your forehead screaming “Imposter!”. And hope that they just won’t catch a glimpse.

Posted at 3:22 am | No Comments »

So I’ve been listening to a lot of Jillian Michaels recently (mostly because I don’t want to do school work). And one of the things that she’s been talking about in her latest podcast is this idea of physically identifying the things that make you tick. This definately brought two things to mind for me (which are more private issues regarding relationships, so they’ll be written in my journal rather than in my weight loss blog). But then upon further reflection, I thought of this:

Part of me is afraid of being skinny.

That’s right. I think that’s the thing that holds me back a lot of the time. While 95% of me wants it so badly — wants to go to the parties and to be able to walk into clothes shops, wants to wear bikinis to the beach and be the cutest of my friends (or at the very least, not be the ‘fat friend’). But part of me is scared of being skinny because there is so much I don’t like about myself right now. I hate the social awkwardness, I hate being so shy, I hate not having the words when I want to say something, I hate feeling incomfortable in my own skin, I hate that I don’t get up early in the mornings and I don’t know everything about everything. Some of these things will change as I lose weight.

But some of them won’t, and that scares me, because for a very long time, losing weight has been the solution. Feel crappy? Resolve to lose 5 kilograms. To me skinny = perfection. And that 5% part that isn’t all focus is scared about what happens when I get there and it isn’t a happily ever after.

And there’s another point, I suppose: I’ve been overweight for as long as I can remember. Even in grade 1, I remember I was the second largest girl in the class. In grade 5, I weighed more than my teacher (although in hindsight, I’m pretty sure I was also as tall as, if not taller than — but all I remember is the shame.) Who am I without the layer of pudge? Who am I if not that jovial girl who is quite nice if shy and and needs to lose a few? Who am I if I am defining myself by what I like, instead of what I hate? Once I reach the goal, will I find that I’ve transformed into this confident, stylish woman who has it together? Or will I still be this neurotic mess who can’t bloody bring herself to talk to a boy she likes?

I don’t know. I don’t. But I guess at the end of the day, the most important question is: How badly do I want to find out?

And the answer — very.

Posted at 12:11 pm | No Comments »

I’ve been dreaming about High School. (Again.) This happens semi-regularly, but it annoys me. High School was alternatively utter bliss and pure crap. It was long bouts of feeling awkward in class and having the absolute certainty that I didn’t fit in, knowing that the people around me were just tolerating me, and feeling like the annoying outsider whenever I tried to join in. (Of course, at the same time, I had an amazing group of friends, but when we did different subjects I was stranded.) I remember feeling bewildered and unsure and, yeah, fat. I felt ugly and completely socially incompetant.

So these dreams I have semi-regularly tend to randomly include boys I used to know/like, people who made me feel awkward…suddenly being my friends. It’s a wierd interaction (obviously — I’m dreaming), but my dreams never have that feeling of self-consciousness.

I wish I was over this feeling. I’m 4 years out of high school and I still feel like this. I still go to events (like the Ceilidh and I need to push myself to dance, because I’m always worried that my partner is thinking “Oh no, I don’t want the fat one.”

I need to lose this weight, because I know it’s a big part of it. But more than that, I want the confidence of losing weight — the knowledge that I can do it to be there. I want the confidence of liking who I am to go through everyday life and to throw myself into it. I need to do this. I just…didn’t realise how much.

Posted at 1:09 am | No Comments »

There’s something I always find vaguely unsettling about photos, and I’m sure that many people in my position feel it too. When I look at a photo, the outside never seems to match the inside. Inside, I’m this wonderful, attractive, bubbly and warm person — outside, I’m mostly just flabby and pale. Particularly in my face.

This dissonance is really hard to handle a lot of the time. Often it’s that which snaps us into doing something. But it’s that much harder to handle when you see a picture of yourself that you hate, and other people tell you how good you look. Because the next thought it “What do I look like most of the time?” And the answer is never encouraging.

I’m going to make a generalisation here, but I find that it’s usually my female friends who talk about how gorgeous we all look. Men, not so much. And I think the reason is this: To women, “gorgeous,” “beautiful,” “pretty,” is all as compared to what you normally look like. If you dress up nice, “Don’t you look wonderful!” And we preen and feel like we look just like them for a while and everything is just fine. But to men, all those words are usually in comparison to other women. “She’s gorgeous” they’ll say, and they’ll mean it — objectively. While women mean it subjectively — subjective to what you normally look like.

This is why, I think, for a long time I believed that I wasn’t beautiful at all. I was unattractive: full stop, end of story. The only people who complimented me were women, because they subjectively saw my beauty. But then I started looking for things I like about myself, and I saw someone with a good bone structure, with a nice body shape, with lovely skin and pretty eyes. And I realised that the only thing stopping the objective beauty was how much excess weight I carried.

So now when I see a picture that I hate but that others decree is gorgeous, I don’t get all defensive and feel like shit for days — I smile and thank them. Because my friends are seeing my beauty long before I really see it, and long before it becomes ‘objective’. Particularly as these girls notice my changes along the way.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is: Accept the compliment, don’t think about what you think of the person behind it (yourself). It is tough, and sometimes I do get frustrated, because I know that objectively, I’m not attractive. But I’m also learning that, as a person, I am subjectively wonderful — and one day, those two worlds will collide.

Posted at 8:52 pm | No Comments »